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Teaching new players when kind words dont help

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4 years ago
6 caretakers, 4 storages, 2 shields, 4 stingers, 2 flaks and few units balled in base, 3 factories making cons to spend metal they dont have, 2 strider hubs and forever unfinished detri and bertha(sure, after donating dante, funnel and scorpion).

This game is very complex at first. 4 months ago it took me more than a minute to find out I have some free factory thingie. No real problems since, but some of these other new and beautiful people...

So why cant bigger units be unlocked for multiplayer after you play that helpful single player? Or play/win 15+ games? Like anything that costs more than 1000, you need to unlock them for multiplayer. Its just pain to play with people who have no idea what to do, meaning the guys that build the big units and contribute less than that one Russian guy(well they dont reclaim wrecks away from team, but still, metal income is shared and few people wasting that income FROM THE TEAM EFFORT sucks cock).

You learn at front, fight with small units until you know better. Now its start at rear and do nothing good. Team with most amount of confused nephropidae larvae loses.

+6 / -0
Most of the things you complained about the new players building don't cost more than 1000, so that policy doesn't make much sense.

I find it very hard to believe that any possible policy will cause bad players to not be bad players.

I was not around for the time many years ago when these kinds of unit unlocks existed but I have not been told that anything about dealing with new players was any more pleasant then.

Furthermore, in an RTS seeing somebody else make something cool and then being told "nah piss off you're not a member of the cool kids so you can't make this yet" sounds like an incalculably shitty experience. Especially if you can't work out how to counter it.
+12 / -0

4 years ago
I would like unlocking policy because it motivate play more and unlock new units to test. Btw this policy cold be used in Planet wars. Not just big units should be locked. Also GS, strider and plane factory should be locked. Supwep also. Com upgrades couldcost more xp points. And storage should be last unit to be unlocked. XD
Main problem that mpst this low players doesn't listen what other are telling them and you just can't do more. :/ But if player is like RUrankrusbolshakov then he even after 100 games play very bad.
Only thing that can solve situation is make whr upper and lower limit for joining in room or just kick from room most useless players. However majority doesn't want to make such changes in losbter pots. So nothing will change. Like with two com shit uneven games.
+3 / -0
4 years ago
IMO just toss them in to a boot camp vs a Brutal AI, realistically beating brutal AI take like 5 minutes so if they can learn to do it good on them, otherwise they are kind of usless in teams...
+5 / -0
Firepluk
quote:
IMO just toss them in to a boot camp vs a Brutal AI, realistically beating brutal AI take like 5 minutes so if they can learn to do it good on them, otherwise they are kind of usless in teams...

with a disabled terraform to make it the real deal :D
+1 / -0

4 years ago
quote:
IMO just toss them in to a boot camp vs a Brutal AI, realistically beating brutal AI take like 5 minutes so if they can learn to do it good on them, otherwise they are kind of usless in teams...


Do you really think that most of lobstar pot players (including Firepluk) could do it? :D When i start to play ZK i was bad as well. However before i started playing teams i played many games with CAI because i didn't wanted to be got blamed for stupidity starting playing game like white papper list.
+1 / -0


4 years ago
Terraform doesn't really help you beat Brutal rapidly, just to not die for long enough to superweapon cheese it.

I'm sure there is some sort of effective and useful tutorial or guide that you could force new accounts through for the big team games. It is not something that is easy to create.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Im so low level forum user I dont even know how to make quotes, but to Aquanim: people making things under 1000 will start making the more expensive stuff also, and waste much team metal for nothing. They dont fight, they dont get better. Bad experienced players can be bad, its just that people with few battles under their belt dont get much better if they dont play front, just keep going for striders etc.

Some people just cant do strategy clicking so well, its cool to be bad at the front(up to certain point), but the above mentioned strider people dont really fight. Also if I would have dante of cyclops or such locked, I would be more than happy to play single player to get them, and learn on the side. Now you can be level 0 and get access to level 100 stuff.

Or maybe Im just approaching this wrong, I play to win the battle, not just make big robots and see flashing colors and hear boom noises with no care in the world, like too many new and newish people seem to do. Im starting to understand Firepluk.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
FIrankKapy
quote:
Im so low level forum user I dont even know how to make quotes


More like a too lazy bastard to actually go and look it up...

Otherwise I agree with your sentiment.
+0 / -3
4 years ago
Some pop-up info screens for low ranks? Excessing metal would give a small pop-up screen(general or near factory?) saying "build ONE caretaker to help spend metal". Units standing too long in a ball in your base, get a pop-up near them saying to move them closer to the enemy and paying attention to the map, you need to help your team? Start making strider hub, get a pop-up saying the units are really expensive and advanced and need to be properly used, have you played single player tutorials? Make a storage and get a pop up saying ONE is usually enough.

Would new guys really make too many storages if they are clearly told that they dont need to do that by the game itself, not by players? Get that pop-up the first 30 games, you really should understand. If not, hopeless cause, case closed.

The game needs to clearly explain that having 20 cons wont make building finish faster if you dont have metal income to match.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
quote:
Im so low level forum user I dont even know how to make quotes
As we are in a thread about people that don't learn, think is important to learn something, you can quote by writing:
[q]text[/q]
All the formatting options are explained in a link called "Forum and Wiki formatting guide", which is below the edit box any time you edit a forum post.

quote:
they dont get better. Bad experienced players can be bad, its just that people with few battles under their belt dont get much better if they dont play front,
I could agree with you if you would have said "don't get better fast enough", otherwise I would say "citation needed". Sure, you would get better faster if you would fight front, but some do get better even just playing at the back (they do rush singu instead of detri, and don't build storages).

Otherwise maybe you can try to use the "!proposebattle" to start a team game with a minimum elo.
+0 / -0


4 years ago
[Spoiler]
+5 / -0
quote:
[Spoiler]


but imo if we save a replay of someone decent bullrushing Brutal AI and beating it in 5 minutes, give that replay to newbies with some recorded commentary, and then say "now you do it" it would be good enough tutorial
+0 / -0
For only edited forum posts, you can check out revision history on the left, which will give the whole 'code' as it was written.

Let's go over some frequent things.
Invisible text is possible too, with hexdecimal numbers #RRGGBB
You can change the size of text.

You can change the color of text

You can sternly make your presence known with bold, underline, and italics
Don't confuse the order your [] blocks are in otherwise it can break
quote:
this starts a quote block

and it contain everything inside it as such


reference someone with an USrankAdminSteel_Blue

For more options, check out:


+3 / -0
Before you play multi on a new account, receiving a one-time option/prompt to play 3 matchmaking games vs AI on 1v1 maps to help set your starting elo would be pretty tight.

Path could go

Normal
--- if win, Brutal
--- if lose, Easy

Brutal
--- if win, another brutal
-- if lose, Hard
OR
Easy
-- if win, Hard
-- if lose, Novice

You could set up a similar one time offer - or even have it be an option players can select time - for a team game bootcamp. A series of pre-defined large games with all other players as AI, of ascending difficulty.
+1 / -0

4 years ago
Me think there are three abilities players have (or do not have):
1. Knowledge (e.g., how the eco works: sharing, overdrive, grid functions etc.)
2. Skills (e.g., units microing, map control strategy)
3. Style (e.g., porcing, cheeze, etc.)

Seems to me #2 and #3 come with experience, and it's ok, but there are players who don't have enough #1, that is a basic knowledge about game mechanics and that's bad, especially in teams (frustrating their teammates).

For example:
- Cornea "hiding" the structures
- Caretakers and storage spam
- Building luci/cerb with no grid
and so on

So I'd like to see a simple quiz about basic game mechanics (especially resources management), that a player have to pass to be able to play teams.
+2 / -0

4 years ago
I agree with almost everything Kapy said.

Not all new players are cancer to a team's chances of winning. The first time I saw @Softwarebug I knew he was going to be great and was happy to have him on the team for the low, low price of a couple of stripes. Most nub players however are plain baaad, and it's an ever-lasting source of frustration to me that my team is going to lose because we have one more lobster than the other team.

I totally feel Kapy's pain. After ten minutes of getting mauled on the frontline, zooming out wide for a second to see what support might be coming, can break your heart, when you see the Detriment that will be completed in 33:52.
+2 / -0
4 years ago
Back to the original topic: how can I help a new player "git gud" when they waste time and resources in a lobsterpot?

Invite the player to play side-by-side with you against some AIs, and mentor them. After lobster games, if there's someone who wasn't doing so well, I'll invite them to join me. I may not be a godlike player, but I CAN help build the community positively. I figure, the more players we get playing the game regularly, the more likely we'll get the next SoftwareBug, 4hundred, or Godde.

I've recently started inviting new players to play with me, and leaving my co-op lobbies open to anyone so that new players can join me. I take the time to give them some of the basics, and point out things they can do to improve and get on a decent level. I'll explain how to know how much build power to have; when to expand, when to build intel, when to facswitch, etc. As a game ends, I try to point out the end-game graphs to pay attention to so they know where they're going wrong and how to improve.

Kind words do help, but in the confusion of a lobster game, it can be hard to catch what you're trying to say sometimes (even if it appears to be obvious to you with a clear map marker on their fac). We can be positive. It does help.
+2 / -0
4 years ago
You cannot teach players to play during a game.

If a player is not capable at the start of the game, you will be only gimping yourself by spending attention on babysitting him. What really helps your team is ensuring his eventual frontal suicide is promptly reclaimed.

Great way to lose a game is making that 6 caretaker guy build a base at front and feed enemy into a snowball.
+0 / -1
I like that new players can just jump straight in and really hate the idea of new players being blocked from multiplayer or having units restricted.

Your average 12-a-side lobsterpot might have one or two players who won't contribute anything useful unless given some guidance, but that's not too high a number.

I have more of a problem with the majority of players with 30-300 games who just aren't responsive and don't cooperate than with the guy with only 5 games under his belt making storages.


Don't the splash screens already display the important points like storage and build power? (I learnt quite a bit from those)

unknownrankTinySpider : You can and should teach players the game in-game. Getting a new person enjoying and playing zero k is far more important than any individual game. I'll happily lose ten pots in a row if it means a new player is instructed and made to feel welcome.
+5 / -1
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